Mystic River / Таинственная река

She stayed where she was. “Yeah. I'll wash the clothes.”

She found some plastic gloves under the sink and she put them on. Then she took his shirt and his jeans from the floor. The jeans were dark with blood, too.

“How did you get the blood on your jeans?”

He shrugged. “I was kneeling over him.”

She took the clothes to the kitchen where she put them in the sink and ran the water, watching the blood and pieces of flesh and, oh Christ, maybe pieces of brain, wash down the drain. It amazed her how much the human body could bleed. And all this blood was from one head. She poured dishwashing liquid all over the T-shirt, then squeezed it out and went through the whole process again until the water was clear. She did the same with the jeans, and by that time Dave was out of the shower and sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, watching her.

“Why aren't you using the washing machine?” he asked.

She looked at him, smiled nervously and said, “Evidence, honey.”

“Damn, babe,” he said. “You're a genius.”

Four in the morning, and she was more awake than she'd been in years. Her blood was caffeine. Your whole life you wished for something like this. You told yourself you didn't, but you did. To be involved in a drama. And not the drama of unpaid bills and quarrels. No. This was real life, but bigger than real life. Her husband may have killed a bad man. And if that bad man really was dead, the police would want to find out who did it. And if they did, they'd need evidence.

She could see them sitting at the kitchen table, asking her and Dave questions. They'd be polite. And she and Dave would be polite back and calm. Because all they ever need is evidence. And she'd just washed the evidence into the kitchen sink drain. In the morning, she'd take the drain pipe from under the sink and wash that too with bleach and put it back in place. She'd put the shirt and jeans into a plastic trash bag and hide it until Tuesday morning and then throw it into the back of the garbage truck where it would be lost. She'd do this and feel good.

5

On Sunday morning, right before his daughter Nadine's First Communion[23], Jimmy Marcus got a call from Pete Gilibiowski, who was working at the store, telling him he needed help.

“Help?” Jimmy sat up in bed and looked at the clock. “Pete, since when you and Katie can't handle it?”

“That's the thing, Jim. Katie isn't here.”

“She isn't what?” Jimmy got out of bed and walked down the hallway toward Katie's room. He pushed the door open after a quick knock. Her bed was empty and, worse, made, which meant she hadn't slept there last night. “I'm coming,” Jimmy said to Pete, then hung up and walked back to the bedroom.

Annabeth was sitting up in bed, yawning. “The store?” she asked.

Jimmy nodded. “Katie did not show up.”[24]

“Today,” Annabeth said. “Day of Nadine's First Communion, she didn't show up for work. What if she doesn't come to the church either?”

“I'm sure she'll come.”

“I don't know, Jimmy. If she got so drunk last night. Do you even know where she could be?”

“Diane or Eve's,” Jimmy shrugged. “Maybe a boyfriend's.”

There was no talking to Annabeth when it came to Katie. Annabeth – the love of his life, no question – had no idea how cold she could be sometimes. Normally, she was either annoyed with her stepdaughter or happy that they were best friends. Katie was seven when she lost her mother. She was deeply wounded by her mother's death.

“Yeah? Who's she seeing these days?” Annabeth asked.

“I thought you knew better than me.”

“She stopped seeing Bobby O'Donnell in November. That was good enough for me.”

Jimmy, putting his clothes on, smiled. When Katie had begun seeing him last summer, the Savage brothers told Jimmy they'd sort it out[25], if it became necessary. But Katie had broken up with him herself, though, and quite painlessly.

Annabeth hated Bobby O'Donnell not only because he had slept with her stepdaughter, but also because he was something of a lousy criminal, and not like the pros she thought her brothers were and her husband had been in the years before Marita died.

Marita had died fourteen years ago, while Jimmy was in prison. One Saturday, during visitation hours, Marita told Jimmy a mole on her arm had been growing lately, and she was going to see a doctor. Just to be safe, she said. Four Saturdays later she was doing chemo. Six months later she was dead.

Jimmy, who got out of prison two months after the funeral, stood in his kitchen in the same clothes he'd left it in, smiling at his child. He remembered her first four years, but she didn't. She only remembered the last two, maybe some fragments of the man he'd been in this house, before she was allowed to see him only on Saturdays from the other side of an old table. Standing in his kitchen, watching her, Jimmy had never felt more useless. He had never felt as alone or frightened as when he took Katie's small hands in his.

Marita had died and left them together, not knowing what the hell they were going to do next.

“Your mom's smiling down at us from heaven,” Jimmy told Katie. “She's proud of us.”

Katie said, “Do you have to go back to that place again?” “No. Never again,” Jimmy promised her.

* * *

Jimmy got to Cottage Market, the corner store he owned and worked the cash register while Pete worked the coffee counter.

During a five-minute rest before the early church mass crowd, Jimmy called Drew Pigeon and asked him if he'd seen Katie. Jimmy asked the question and only then realized that he'd been very anxious.

“I think she's here, yeah,” Drew said. “Let me go check.”

Jimmy listened to Drew's heavy footsteps in the hallway. Then he heard Drew coming back toward the phone.

“Jimmy, sorry. It was Diane Cestra who slept over. She's in there on the floor of Eve's bedroom, but no Katie. Eve said Katie dropped them off around one A.M. Didn't say where she was going.”

“Hey, no problem, man,” Jimmy put a false brightness into his tone. “I'll find her.”

“She's seeing anyone, maybe?”

“Nineteen-year-old girl? Who knows?”

Jimmy hung up and looked down at the cash register as if it could tell him something. This wasn't the first time Katie had stayed out all night. And it wasn't even the first time she hadn't showed up at work, but she usually called.

The bell hanging at the top of the door rang, and Jimmy looked up to see Brendan Harris and his little brother, Silent Ray, walk past the counter and head for the aisles where the breads and cookies and teas were. Jimmy noticed Brendan looking at the cash registers like he was hoping to see someone. Who was he looking for? Could he be stupid enough to be thinking about robbing the store? Jimmy had known Brendan's father, Just Ray Harris, so he knew that some dumb ran in the genes, but no one was so dumb as to try to rob a store with his thirteen-year-old mute brother. Plus, if anyone got some brains in the family, Jimmy thought, it was Brendan. A shy kid, but good-looking, and Jimmy had long ago learned the difference between someone who was quiet because he didn't know anything and someone who just stayed inside himself, watching, listening, taking it all in. Brendan had that quality.

He turned toward Jimmy and their eyes met, and the kid gave Jimmy a nervous, friendly smile.

Jimmy said, “Help you, Brendan?”

“Uh, no, Mr. Marcus, just picking up some, uh, some tea my mom likes.”

Jimmy watched Brendan and Silent Ray communicate in sign language, standing in the middle of the center aisle. The hands went flying, the two of them going so fast it would have been hard for Jimmy to keep up even if they were making sounds. Silent Ray had always been a strange little kid, in Jimmy's opinion, more like the mother than the father.

Brendan and Silent Ray had reached the counter and Jimmy saw something in Brendan's face.

“So, uh, I thought Katie worked Sundays,” Brendan said as he handed the money.

Pete, standing nearby, raised his eyebrows and asked, “You're interested in my man's daughter, Brendan?”

Brendan wouldn't look at Jimmy. “No, no, no.” He laughed, and it died as soon as it left his mouth. “I was just wondering, you know, because usually I see her here.”

“Her little sister's having her First Communion today,” Jimmy said.

“Oh, Nadine?” Brendan looked at Jimmy, eyes too wide, smile too big.

“Nadine,” Jimmy said, curious as to how the name had come to Brendan so fast. “Yeah.”

“Well, tell her congrats from me and Ray.”

“Sure, Brendan.”

Ray hadn't been looking at his brother when he spoke, but he moved anyway, and Jimmy remembered once again the thing that people usually forgot about Ray: he wasn't deaf, just mute.

“Hey, Jimmy,” Pete said when the brothers had gone, “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you hate that kid so much?”

Jimmy shrugged. “I don't know if it's hate, man. It's just.

That mute is just a little spooky.”

“Oh, him?” Pete said. “Yeah. He's weird, always staring like he sees something in your face. You know? But I wasn't talking about him. I was talking about Brendan. I mean, the kid seems nice. Shy but nice, you know? You notice how he uses sign language with his brother even though he doesn't have to? Like he just wants the kid to feel he isn't alone. It's nice.”

6

Brendan Harris looked at the phone. He looked at his watch. Two hours late. Not a surprise, since Katie was often late, but today of all days? Brendan just wanted to go. And where was she, if she wasn't at work? The plan had been that she'd call Brendan from the store, go to her half sister's First Communion, and then meet him afterward. But she hadn't gone to work. And she hadn't called.

He couldn't call her. Katie was usually at one of three places – at Bobby O'Donnell's place, in the apartment with her father, stepmother, and two half sisters, or in the apartment above, where her crazy uncles, Nick and Val, lived. Her father, Jimmy Marcus, hated Brendan for no logical reason. It made no sense. Brendan had never done anything to Mr. Marcus. Over the years Katie's father had told her to stay away from the Harrises.

“So how did it happen then – you and me?” Brendan once asked Katie.

She smiled sadly at him. “You don't know?”

“No, I don't know.” Frankly, Brendan didn't have any idea. Katie was everything. A Goddess. But Brendan was just, well, Brendan.

“You're kind. I see you with Ray or your mother and even everyday people on the street, and you're just so kind, Brendan.”

And Brendan, thinking about it, had to admit that his whole life he'd never met anyone who didn't like him. He'd never had enemies, hadn't been in a fight since school, and couldn't remember the last time he'd heard a harsh word. Maybe it was because he was kind. And maybe that was rare. Or maybe he just wasn't the type of guy who made people mad. Well, except for Katie's father.

Just half an hour ago, Brendan had felt it in Mr. Marcus's corner store – that quiet hatred. He'd stammered because of it. He couldn't look at Ray the whole way home because of how that hatred had made him feel – dirty.

Brendan couldn't call Katie at one of her two numbers and risk somebody wondering what the hated Brendan Harris was doing, calling their Katie. He'd almost done it a million times, but just the thought of Mr. Marcus or Bobby O'Donnell or one of those psycho Savage brothers answering the phone always stopped him.

He looked at the phone again. Call, please. Call.

* * *

A couple of kids found her car. They called 911.

“There's like this car with blood in it and, uh, the door's open, and, uh.”

The 911 operator asked, “What's the location of the car?”

“In the Flats,” the kid said. “By Pen Park. Me and my friend found it.”

“Is there a street address?”

“Sydney Street,” the kid said into the phone. “There's blood in there and the door's open.”

“What's your name, son?”

“He wants to know her name,” the kid said to his friend.

“Son?” the operator said. “I said your name. What's your name?”

“We're out of here[26], man,” the kid said. “Good luck.”

The kid hung up and the operator saw on his computer screen that the call had come from a pay phone on the street corner about half a mile from the Sydney Street entrance to Penitentiary Park. He forwarded the information to send a unit out.

One of the patrolmen called back and requested more units, a Crime Scene tech or two, and a couple of Homicides.

“Have you found a body?”

“Uh, negative.”

“Why the request for Homicide if there's no body?”

“This car… I feel like we're going to find one around here sooner or later.”

* * *

Sean Devine's Sunday started when he was woken up from a dream by the alarm clock.

His wife, Lauren, had been in that dream. Nowadays, she was often in his dreams.

When did that start happening?he wondered. That's all he wanted to know, really. He closed his eyes. When Lauren left him. That's when it started.

Sean began his first day at work by parking his car and walking to the corner of Sydney Street. The car, as he understood it, had been found on Sydney Street, but the blood trail led into Penitentiary Park. Sean walked along the edge of the park, and the first thing he noticed was a parked Crime Scene Services van.

As he got closer, he saw Sergeant Whitey Powers standing by his car. Detectives Souza and Connolly were searching the weeds outside the park entrance. The Crime Scene Services crew were going over the car.

“Hey,” Whitey Powers said in surprise. “Someone called you already?”

“Yeah,” Sean said. “I don't have a partner, though. Adolph's out.”

Whitey Powers nodded, “You're with me, kid. For now.” He turned Sean toward the car with the open door, then pointed at the weeds and the park beyond. “I guess we'll find her over there somewhere. But, you know, we just started looking, and Friel says we call it a Missing Person till we find a body. Want to look at the car?”

“You said 'her,'” Sean said as they went under yellow crime scene tape and headed for the car.

“The CSS found her registration. Car's owner is a Katherine Marcus.”

“Damn,” Sean said.

“Know her?”

“Might be the daughter of a guy I know.”

“You guys are close?”

Sean shook his head. “No, not anymore.”

They reached the car and Whitey pointed at the open driver's door as a CSS tech stepped back from it. “Just don't touch anything, guys.”

Sean took one look at the weeds leading up to the park and knew if they found a body, they'd find it in there. “What do we have?”

“Door was open when we found it. Keys were in the ignition, headlights were on,” the tech reported.

Sean noticed a bloodstain over the speaker on the driver's door. Then he saw another spot of blood on top of the steering wheel. A third stain, longer and wider than the other two, was around the edges of a bullet hole in the driver's seat at shoulder level. Sean was looking past the door at the weeds to the left of the car, then he looked at the outside of the driver's door and saw a fresh dent there.

He looked at Whitey, and Whitey nodded. “Someone probably stood outside the car. The Marcus girl – if that's who was driving – hits him with the door. He shoots her, uh, I don't know, in the shoulder, maybe? The girl starts running anyway.” He pointed at some weeds flattened by running feet. “They head for the park. Her wound couldn't have been too bad, because we've only found a few bloodstains in the weeds.”

Sean said, “We got units over there in the park?”

“Two.”

Sean stepped back. “You found any ID besides the car registration?”

“Yeah. Wallet under the seat, driver's license of Katherine Marcus. There was a backpack behind the passenger seat. Billy's checking the contents now.”

Sean looked at the guy on his knees in front of the car, a dark blue backpack in front of him.

“How old did her license say she was?” Sean asked.

“Nineteen,” Whitey said. “And you know the father? The poor man probably has no idea.”

Sean turned his head, watched the sun cut through the clouds, and remembered that wild aloneness he'd seen in eleven-year-old Jimmy Marcus's face when they'd almost stolen that car. Sean could feel that aloneness now, standing by the weeds leading to Penitentiary Park.

He thought of Lauren who'd been in his dream this morning. He thought of Lauren and wished he could just get back into that dream and disappear.

7

Nadine Marcus, Jimmy and Annabeth's younger daughter, had her Holy Communion for the first time on Sunday morning at Saint Cecilia's church in the Flats. Her hands pressed together, white veil and white dress making her look like a baby bride or snow angel, she walked up the aisle with forty other children.

Jimmy put his arm around Annabeth, and she leaned to him and whispered: “Our baby. My God, Jimmy, our baby.”

Jimmy and Annabeth were crazy about their girls. They worked hard to keep them happy, and the girls knew they were loved. Jimmy, who'd hated his old man, preferred the old ways of raising children. A kid knew the parents loved him but were still the bosses, rules existed for a reason, no really meant no, and just because you were cute didn't mean you could do what you wanted.

Of course, Jimmy thought, you could raise a good kid, and later have troubles anyway. Like with Katie today. Not only had she never showed up for work, but now it looked like she has missed her younger half sister's First Communion. What the hell was going on?

Katie was nineteen, okay, so the world of her younger half sisters probably couldn't compare to guys and clothes and bars. Jimmy understood this, but missing this event, especially after all Jimmy had done when Katie was younger to mark the events in her life, was so wrong. That's why it made Jimmy angry.

By the time Nadine and the other kids walked out through the back door of the church, Jimmy started feeling less angry but more and more worried about Katie. She wasn't one to let her half sisters down. They worshipped her, and she loved them – taking them to movies, out for ice cream.

So why would she miss Nadine's First Communion?

Maybe she had met a handsome new guy. Maybe she'd just forgotten.

Annabeth touched his hand and, as if reading his mind, said, “I'm sure she's fine. With a hangover, probably. But fine.”

Jimmy smiled and nodded. Annabeth was Jimmy's foundation, plain and simple. She was his wife, mother, best friend, sister, lover, and priest. When Jimmy had gotten out of prison, at first the things were tough, and he had to choose between a car payment and Katie's Christmas present. People said it was in his blood – stealing, crime. But then, when he'd met Annabeth a year after, Jimmy bought Al DeMarco's corner store and became a shopkeeper – all for his little girl. She couldn't go through another two years if he went to prison again. So he stayed straight.

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Примечания

1

если бы не отцы

2

Теперь Джимми не торопился / не спешил

3

отныне

4

сделать так, чтобы; удостовериться, убедиться

5

Почему? (разг.)

6

Здесь и далее в своей речи персонажи используют упрощённые грамматические структуры (прим. сост.)

7

Какого чёрта

8

собирался

9

Теперь ему влетит.

10

типа (разг.)

11

на всякий случай

12

было как-то связано с

13

в разгаре

14

были посвящены во что-то

15

если они случайно сталкивались

16

навсегда

17

полюбил

18

пистолет 22-го калибра

19

цены на жильё

20

Ив стошнило

21

пустынно / безжизненно

22

Я психанул.

23

первое причастие

24

Кэти не явилась.

25

они с этим разберутся

26

Нам надо идти